Product Assignment in CRM Trade Promotions

This document should provide an overview about the usage of products in CRM trade promotions. The document contains the different types of products and the different ways of assigning products to trade promotions. Further this document contains information about the required customizing and known issues related to products in CRM trade promotions.

Product Planning Basis

The product planning basis in a trade promotion defines the detail level of the product planning. Trade promotions can use the following as product planning basis:

Product: the planning happens for several individual products
Product category: the planning happens on a collection of related products. Usually trade promotions are planned for a whole line of products, for all products within a brand.
Product group:The product group is an attribute in the sales set of the product. When a product group is assigned, all the products for the sales area of the trade promotion are assigned that belong to that product group.
Product segment: A product segment provides a different way of grouping products together. Whereas the product group is defined in customizing, the product segment is built on free attributes and created in segmentation.

The product planning basis needs to be selected from the TP header attributes when creating the trade promotion.

Selecting the product planning basis enables the corresponding assignment blocks. Based on the product planning basis only the allowed assignment can be entered.

The product planning basis needs to be entered before entering any product assignment. If product assignment is created in the trade promotion the product planning basis must not be changed any more.

A further restriction is valid for saved trade promotions regarding product segments:

If the current value of the product planning basis is not 'product segment' or 'product segment and product', then delete those two entries from the drop-down list of the product planning basis field.
If the current value of the product planning basis is 'product segment' or 'product segment and product', then delete the rest of the product planning basis values from the product planning basis drop-down list.

Product Assignment

When using 'product' as product planing basis there are 2 ways of adding a product to a trade promotion. Usually a product is assigned to a certain product category:

single assign product: when single assigning products the product is entered directly in the trade promotion. The product category is determined on entering the product.
mass assign product: when mass assigning products the product category is entered in the trade promotion. The category is exploded into the assigned products and the products are added to the trade promotion.

Product Category Assignment

When using 'product category' as product planing basis the product category is entered in the product category assignment block. Depending on the minimum level of the product hierarchy defined in customizing there is the following design.

assigned product category is higher or equal as the minimum level of the product hierarchy: If the assigned product category is higher or equal as the minimum level of the product hierarchy the product category is added directly. Additionally if the assigned product category is higher as the minimum level of the product hierarchy the user gets informed.
assigned product category is lower as the minimum level of the product hierarchy: If the assigned product category is lower as the minimum level of the product hierarchy the product category is exploded to the minimum level.
The product category 'Machines' has level 1, the minimum level is set to 2 in customizing.

When now entering product category 'Machines' the product category gets exploded into level 2 and the user is informed.

Product Group Assignment

The product groups available for trade promotions need to be defined in customizing. The product group then needs to be assigned as a product attribute in the sales and distribution data.

The product group can either be assigned in the product group assignment block or can be used to mass assign products. The product group must not be empty, so must contain a product to be used in a trade promotion.

Product Segment Assignment

The product segment needs to be defined using the segment builder. Only segments from type '02 products' and from usage '06 conditions' can be assigned to a trade promotion. Further the segment needs to be active and the validity needs to fall into the trade promotion validity.

Product Effective Dates

The product effective dates do not necessarily have to be similar to the trade promotion dates. A product can be planned for a shorter period of time as the trade promotion.

The product effective dates can either be entered manually or are defaulted based on a certain date type defined in customizing. The product effective dates need to be inside the trade promotion date range, otherwise an error is raised.

In conditions are generated for the trade promotion the condition records are created for the product effective date range, rather than the trade promotion validity.

Product Exceptions

To restrict the product validity in a trade promotion can either be done via the product effective dates, or can be done with excluding the product.

Using product exceptions the trade spend values can be changed for certain periods.

Product Checks

The following checks are performed on products:

check if product is already assigned: a product must not be assigned twice, if a product exists in a trade promotion the same product cannot be added again. The user is informed accordingly
Status: system check the product status:
- A product that is inactive must not be added to a trade promotion
- A product that is locked can be used in the trade promotion, however since the locked product must not be used in a sales order the user is informed
Sales UoM: The product sales unit is validated against the product master data

For product categories the UOM is validated against the single product assigned to the product category. The product category UOM needs to be available for at least 1 product assigned to the category.

Product Effective Dates: the product effective dates need to be inside the trade promotion date range
Master Data: once the trade promotion is released to generate conditions the products are validated against the master data

The following checks are performed on product categories:

check if product category is already assigned
check for minimum level of the product hierarchy: when entering the product the level of the added product category is checked and expanded if the level is below the minimum level

The following checks are performed on product groups:

check if product group is empty: the product group must not be empty to be used in a trade promotion

The following checks are performed on product segments:

check if product segment is active
check if product segment is from usage '06 conditions'

There are some checks that are performed once a certain user interaction is performed:

delete products: products must no be deleted from an active trade promotion. A trade promotion is considered as active once it is released and the start date of the trade promotion is reached. When deleting a product, system check if the trade promotion is active and prohibits the deletion
exclude products: similar to the deletion a check if performed when excluding a product from the trade promotion.
check for invalid retroactive off-invoice trade spend: if a past dated trade promotion contains any off-invoice trade spend system checks for invalid retroactive off-invoice trade spends exist in the promotion. Depending on the customizing and on the sales area which is assigned to the promotion, retroactive off-invoice trade spends can be allowed. If at least one off-invoice trade spends exists and if the Product Effective Start Date is
set to a prior date than today, then an error message is raised for the user, saying that it is not possible to add/modify Products when Retroactive Off-Invoice Trade Spends exist. If it is allowed a warning is raised.

In case the check for the product assignment is to restricitive the same can be turned off using a BAdI approach. The BAdI CRM_MKTPL_OL_ASG interface method CHANGE_CHECK_MODE can be used to skip the check.

Using method CHANGE_CHECK_MODE the CHECK_MODE needs to be set to 'N' for the product assignment.

This is enabled with the following note:

2193438 No Check (CHECK_MODE = 'N') scenario is not handled in method CHECK of class CL_CRM_MKTGS_ASG_COLLECTION

PMDC report

Trade promotions are set up with certain master data and are valid during a specified time frame. Changes in master data are not reflected automatically in these objects. Updating the changes to the trade promotion need to be done manually using the PMDC (Persistent Master Data Changes) report. The scope of PMDC is to evaluate certain master data changes and to apply these changes to affected trade promotions. Detailed information about the PMDC report is available in the following document:

PMDC report in CRM Trade Promotions

Customizing

Product Planning Basis

The following customizing sets the allowed product planning basis for each object type and defines the default value:

Customer Relationship Management

Trade Promotion Management

Basic Data

Products

Define Product Planning Basis